


Recruits of the Lamb

by innermostenergon



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Gratuitous Violence, M!SS Raider Leader, Post-BOS Ending, raider perspective
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 21:33:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6627316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innermostenergon/pseuds/innermostenergon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Sole Survivor from a different vault, and for a different reason, Nick (not of the Valentine variety) breaks into the Commonwealth from his home in Providence, Rhode Island, and starts a raider band the Brotherhood can't quite seem to shut down. Involves some intensely disturbing imagery, so if you are sensitive, please use caution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Birth

**Author's Note:**

> Someone once bet me I couldn't write something truly dark and dramatic if I tried, let alone from a more original perspective, so I set out to prove them wrong. Here you go!

**January 3rd, 2070.**  
She sees flashes of her boy, his fair skin bathed in fresh, hot blood, giggling in elation among a field of twisted limbs and faces frozen in shock and agony. The picture burns inside her mind, its claws fiercely dug into her skull. The birth is not going well, to say the least. She has been in labor for sixteen hours now, and the doctors are fearing with all the bleeding, she may not survive this. Their, and her, main priority is her son. There is another contraction, and the doctor winces as her screaming rakes down his spine like the talons of some fierce creature.  
She herself wasn't born any more normally than her son. Her _birth_ went fine; it was the _rest of her_ that was wrong. Her mother cried when presented with the wriggling infant girl with facial deformities, unable to believe she could birth such an ugly creature. Eventually, and with some coaxing from the nurses in her high-class hospital, her mother accepted her and began to love her daughter anyway; something that would not change, even as the little girl grew to be odd in even more ways than they could have imagined.  
She'd had visions more than once, and that was before all the Jet and Mentats she used in high school to get through the day. Those just enhanced her visions, and her high school 'chemistry' club thought it was the coolest thing ever. Her father, however, did absolutely _not_. He was convinced her 'so-called visions' and rebellious nature was from her friends, or her school, or the lack of ladylike etiquette with which she presented herself; it never occurred to him that it may be a part of her, or perhaps even a product of his poor paternal care, something money and discipline could not reverse, despite his many tries and failings.  
Her son's throat and limbs are clear of cord, and another hour later, he's born into the world; when the nurse asks for his name, she can't stop muttering " _nuclear winter, nuclear winter, nuclear winter._ " The vision has blinded her with searing images of red, and white; a man in sunglasses and a wig smiling with a gun in his hand. She can't hear anything but the dim sounds of a radio under rifle fire. The muzzle flashes, and her body weakly twists in the bed. The doctor believes her eyes are rolling into the back of her head from exhaustion; the nurse understands the boy's name is really none of her business, and in a tight cursive, writes "Nuclear Winter" on the birth certificate, and hurries out of the way.   
The boy's grandfather is presented with the sparkling new Corvega Atomic V8 he had purchased months in advance; a beautiful, sparkling cherry red.


	2. Hired

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Chapters will get longer, I promise.)

**September 14th, 2073.**  
The cigarette in her mouth dips again, ash smearing across her knee as she tells her boy to hold still. She worries if the tie is too much. He worries that mama will tell him they don't have enough money for apple juice, again. He just hates to be told 'no.'  
Pa, as he's come to call him (it's shorter than 'grandfather' and easier for his three-year-old tongue), has invited them to join him on his trip to California. He's received a job offer from the government to work on something called the Pan-Immunity Virion Project. China is relentless with biological weaponry, and Pa agrees something must be done. He would prefer to level China with a warhead, but he can't turn his back on science and medicine, he says.  
Pa is coming from some place across the sea called Scotland, but he's paying for their flight from Providence, Rhode Island. Correction; _has paid_ for the flight. She knows this means she does not have a choice. He is wondering if they can afford milk from the big pink machines, instead.  
When they land in California, Pa pretends he's delighted to see her. She pretends she isn't about to cry. They pile into his Corvega, little Nick in her lap - he refuses to call the child 'Nuclear', it's a ridiculous thing to call a child - and they drive in silence to the hotel. He's placed in a fancy room with all sorts of neat things to look at - there's even a pink machine you don't need to put money in to get milk out of. He pretends he can't hear Pa scolding his mother for putting a tie on a three-year-old. Pa pretends he doesn't hear the hiss of an inhaler from the bathroom when the boy has long been put to bed.


	3. Goodbye

**September 17th, 2073.**  
Mama waves at her little Nick, her atom-bomb baby, as Pa pulls him along through the security terminal onto the plane back to Scotland. She chokes up a sob as he disappears. The last time they will ever see one another.  
Pa has taken the job after a conference at West-Tek, and his work begins in a few months. She will be staying in California until he returns to begin work; she's going to try to find a job, she says, here in the Golden State, put her life back together. She'll get off the Jet, save up some money so she can put Nick in school. She loves him more than she loves the chems, she tells Pa; she'll shape up for him. They both know she's lying. She uses the very last of her money to purchase the cheapest return flight to Providence and lies down, broken and sobbing, outside of the airport.   
He's better off with Pa; he's harsh, but Nick's a good boy, and he's not broken, like her. Pa will treat him good. She takes so much Jet, her entire stash, that time slows almost completely for her; she takes a hit from Psycho, too, her first ever. Saved it for a special occasion. She wanders into a military encampment thirty miles out, muttering " _the Glow, the Master._ " Her vision bites at her sanity, snaps at the torn, ruined shreds of her humanity, and at last, she reaches for a gun she's too weak to even lift. The soldier who owns it doesn't care. She's shot on sight, and swept under the rug as a commie spy from China, disguised as a deranged vagrant.   
The soldier is applauded for his heroism.  
She is happy she will never have to hear _'mama, I'm so hungry'_ ever again.


	4. Smile

**January 3rd, 2076.**  
The dog's paws click on the floor as Pa leads it out of the house, for the last time. He loved that dog; it was his favourite, but it's not the first. They cycle through the house more than the housemaids; Ma tells him that's normal. His classmates tells him it's not, and that dogs are meant to be with you your whole life. He learns he doesn't care what anyone says at all, because other people talk a _lot_ , and none of it brings any of his dogs back.  
Pa tells him they'll celebrate his birthday tomorrow, instead, as the door closes; his cherry red Corvega roars to life and backs out of the driveway. They're good to him; a little strict, perhaps, but he's a good boy, all smiles and good grades. Birthday parties, a good education, and he never goes hungry. He's not used to this sort of thing, anymore. Ma is sick, Pa is busy with work, and little Nick is not only missing his birthday, but he doesn't even have a playmate, anymore. He cries and cries until Ma starts to cry, and then he stops, because he doesn't want Ma to be sicker. He just wants a birthday. Or at the very least, some apple juice.  
He misses his mama. Ma told him, 'don't worry about her any more; I'm your Ma, now, she doesn't matter any longer.' It's a lesson he'll carry with him for the rest of his life. People you think will be there forever come and go; dogs just as well as mothers.


	5. Egg

**October 18th, 2076.**  
He doesn't cry when Ma dies. The funeral is quick, and Pa has the sense to get drunk and numb when they're home, rather than in the car. He puts little Nick to sleep and hammers his expensive whiskeys and wines. The ones they were saving for the right company, the right celebration. They had just cracked into their most expensive bottle two weeks ago, when he had been signed onto Vault 90 for the Evolutionary Experimentation Program.  
The military tells him he'll be regarded as a hero when the Vaults are re-opened. The chief physician of a Vault that will produce a superior human, in time. He's not an idiot; in the event of a nuclear strike, he knows the vaults will never open again. That's why he made sure the Overseer was someone he knew personally when he'd signed on. He has ideas the other scientists would not approve of; the military would not appreciate.  
They believe the body is weak, and it is; Ma is proof of that. She lies cold, and stiff, in the ground; a victim of her own flesh. The military wants stronger soldiers, soldiers that die less, and he'll give that to them, but in time. To get a chicken, one must require an egg. Fertilize it. Incubate it. Watch it develop, slowly, until crack - it hatches into something of use.  
Pa looks at the bundled, sleeping form of little Nick, and watches his chest rise and fall under the blanket. The corners of his mouth twitch in one of the sweet little boy's perpetual smiles, and it dawns on Pa, the idea pushing aggressively past his booze-addled mind into the forefront of all of this thoughts. 


	6. Apocalypse

**October 23rd, 2077.**  
A year from Ma's death, the bombs fall. The apocalypse all over again; this time a much more real-world event than the simulated apocalypse in Pa's life. Given leave while the Vault is finalized, Pa gathered some tools from his lab at Mariposa, and has spent the last year in preparation for Vault 90.  
Pa was given orders by a military official to continue experimentation in whichever way he sees fit. He understands that Dr. Wayne Merrick, the chief physician and undercover experimental scientist of his sister-vault, Vault 87, plans to increase the physical size and power of humanity using his strain. He is a fool. An elephant may take slightly longer to bring down, but down it goes, regardless. Even moreso against Chinese biological weapons and anti-tank artillery. A big, dumb, pliable soldier is just as useless as the ones they have today. If they had been of any use, the bombs wouldn't have fallen.   
What they need is soldiers who are resistant or immune to damage. Bodies that allow bullets to slide through; a mutation that laughs at the idea of cardiovascular shock, radiation, or fatal blood loss. It will be a long, long trial; perhaps even passed onto another scientist in Pa's old age, when he passes. But it will happen.  
And he'll use Nick to test it, too. His perfect little chicken egg. 


	7. Progress

**July 4th, 2079.**  
"But Pa, I wanna go see the light show!"  
"Stay still, or I'll end up poking your eye out. You can see the light show when I'm finished here. You have to get your vaccines just like every other boy."  
It's been two years, and the strain he has been working on has progressed at an unprecedented rate. He'll have the entire formula pinned down within a decade; he's sure of it. Tested on rats first, and then his dwindling supply of chimpanzees deep in the Vault; and then passed onto little Nick for human reaction testing. He has inmates in the basement for this use, but the boy is strong. Deserving of the blessed gift Pa has chosen to give him. So far, only bruises and boils have ever punctuated any adverse reaction; otherwise, there will be a period of excessive healing and damage resistance, before it fades. He's managed to make it last three months at it's longest point. He just needs to make it last longer; much, much longer.  
"But Pa, I get so many more vaccines than the other kids. SO MANY MORE." Nick sighs dramatically, despite being no less chipper than before. Mimicking the emotions of other, normal kids in a cheap, flimsy facade obvious to anyone who isn't Pa; anyone who isn't engrossed in research and clinical testing. Pa peels the Vault suit off the boy's upper body and unbandages his arm, revealing a grotesque stain of purple and yellow. More bruising, a week after the last strain had faded? Something he'll have to look into.  
"That's because you're lucky, Nick - the other boys aren't as special as you are. They don't mean anything compared to you. You'll learn that, some day." Pa has trouble finding a vein that hasn't collapsed - he injects the solution into Nick's subclavean vein. Nick winces and whines in pain, but when the needle's out, it's as though it was never there in the first place. He looks up at Pa with a hopeful look. One of the only genuine emotions the child expresses.  
Pa hands him a bottle of apple juice and sends him on his way.  
The boy does love his apple juice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it wasn't obvious, Nick (Nuclear Winter) is a sociopath.


	8. Fun

**November 8th, 2080.**  
Pa doesn't know about it.  
He's just so curious; he wants to do what Pa does, help people, invent vaccines for deadly underground illnesses. Occasionally patch up Martha's knee when she trips down the stairs again running after her little cat.  
His new home is nice. It's not like the real world, but he supposes it doesn't really even matter. The Overseer lets people keep pets, here. He likes pets. Animals don't fuss as much over silly things like who got into the Vault when the bombs hit, or who didn't. And they make great subjects for Nick to play with.  
He knows he's not really learning much; Pa told him you only ever learn in a proper Institution of education, like a college or a university, but those probably don't exist anymore, and Pa will only teach him when he's older. But he still has a lot of fun cutting open Martha's cat with a scalpel he stole from the Infirmary when Pa wasn't looking. The color is so pretty, even as it fades after a couple of days, and the noises the cat's organs make are kind of funny. He emulates them to cheer up Martha when the remains of the cat are found hidden in a box in Jimmy's closet.  
Jimmy is a mean kid with a mean dog who bit Nick more than once. He doesn't care about Jimmy, or that he bullies him and Martha, or even that his dog bit him. He just likes playing with people. The adults firmly believe Jimmy's dog killed Martha's cat; only a mad dog would make such a mess of it, too. All the adults knew Jimmy bullied Martha, and thought it was another one of his pranks; only the last straw. Jimmy's dog is muzzled and tied to a pipe in the Overseer's office to be euthanized later.  
Nick doesn't ever find out what happens to Jimmy. Pa brings him in for a vaccination again, only this time Pa is happy, and that makes Nick happy too. He smiles and drinks his apple juice as Pa prepares the syringe. The needle goes into Nick, and he collapses on the table to the sound of Pa screaming.


	9. Prosperity

**November 11th, 2080.**  
It's been three days since Pa injected Nick with the final version of the FEV strain. He was so happy he had succeeded; only he hadn't, because the minute the strain took hold of Nick, he'd been beyond 'sick'. He was showing signs of rabies at this point; hydrophobia, high fever, dilated eyes, vomiting, aggression. Every minute the boy is awake he's striking at anyone within range, doing anything he can to draw blood. He's already quarantined. Overseer's orders.  
Pa sits in the infirmary, at his desk, sullen and despondent. Worried he's lost Nick. Intentionally caused his death. Created a strain of FEV useless to him now; the whole point of invulnerability was the progression of the mind. If he's only a walking rabid animal that can't be put down, what the hell is the point? He's sure Dr. Merrick has accomplished that by now in Vault 87. If he releases this strain to the Vault residents now, they'll all be convulsing piles of foam like Nick. It's all useless. He'll need a new subject; but Nick was special. He was supposed to be the one to survive. The only one to deserve it.  
His intercom crackles to life, and the Overseer's voice spills through. "Nick's up." That's all he says, and all Pa needs to hear. He rushes to the observation window, beside Overseer, and smiles. Nick is sitting up, good as new, looking at his surroundings. He's not attacking; not frothing, biting, and his eyes are normal. The machine is still suitably hooked up to him and reading normally.  
The Overseer looks grim, but Pa is far from caring about the man's petty moral obligations. He'd more than once argued that experimenting on an adult human was one thing, but a child? A child indeed, Overseer.   
Pa pressed the little button to allow his voice to drift into the observation room, through the soundproof glass and into the speaker on the other side. "Nick. I'm glad you're alright. You had a little reaction to your last vaccine, but don't worry. Everything is okay now. You're fine."  
"You lied to me."  
Pa's face fell. He looked at Overseer, who was standing there still looking just as grim, refusing to meet Pa's gaze. "One moment, Nick. I just need to have a talk with the Overseer, and I'll be right in with some apple juice for you."  
Pa's finger left the button and he turned to Overseer, quivering with rage. His entire plan, ruined at the moment of victory. By Overseer, none the less. "What the hell were you thinking, telling the boy? You know I had plans for the reveal; plans that would lead Nick into realising just what I have done for him. Not believing I'd been using him as a lab rat, you damned fool!"  
"This was a fluke, damn it. The boy can't go on forever believing what you were doing was right. It wasn't. It never has been and I never should have allowed it. These assholes Vault-Tec gave us for experimentation? Sure. But your own grandson? What the fuck is wrong with you?"  
"He's special, god damn it, it's not my error you can't see that. He's the only god damned one of you who ever deserved the immortality I have given him."  
"Oh, immortality, is that what this is about? I was under the impression we were creating super soldiers for the military, not making your ten year old grandson a macabre Dracula imposter, for fuck's sake!"  
A small voice at the window, crackling softly through the intercom, hushed Pa's response. "It doesn't really matter what either of you are talking about. What's right and wrong doesn't matter, either, because it doesn't change anything. I don't know what fixed me or what you did Pa, but you lied, and I really don't like that. I'm really angry with you."  
Pa smiled and opened his mouth to respond. Nick's head collided violently with the glass; the sickening thud sent a shiver down Pa's spine. His smile faded as fast as it came. "Nick, what do you think you're doing?"  
Nick's head collides again; he's coherent, thinking perfectly, only still aggressive. Still so violent. Why? None of his test subjects showed this kind of savagery in them; if they did, it was a frothing, unending aggression, not this calm, passive, _decisive_ violence.  
Again, and his skin splits across his forehead, blood smearing the window. Overseer retches at the noise. It heals as soon as Nick stops ramming his head against the glass a while; then he resumes.  
Pa leaves for his lab. To study. To find some way to fix this. He's so, so close-  he just needs a little more time. A little more patience.   
Overseer retreats to his office, leaving the boy alone. He contemplates a magnum revolver for three hours before he finally answers his desk phone and continues on with running the Vault.


	10. Rat

**November 12th, 2080.**  
Nick is glad his little room is deep in the Infirmary, where the nurses don't know he is. He's so incredibly angry with Pa, and the Overseer, and all the rest of them. He doesn't know if they were in on it too, and he doesn't care. He managed to break the glass with his head; it took a few hours, and it's past his bedtime, but Pa hasn't come back at all, and this is going to be too much fun to sleep first, anyway.  
He takes his time picking what he wants to use. There are a lot of tools here, in the back of the Infirmary. Some stuff he's never even seen. He sees a gun and tries to find out how to load it, but gives up quickly. Too complicated. He finds a green ball next to it; no, not a ball, a grenade. He's seen them before, Pa showed him. He walks into the patient's infirmary, his little white gown streaked in his own blood, his hair matted red, grenade hidden in his hand. The night nurse looks up and shrieks, rushes to his side. Her scream brings in a lot of people; "little Nick is hurt! Someone, please, fetch the Doctor!" In five or so minutes, there must be at least fifteen people packed in the infirmary, all crowded around poor, bloody little Nick.   
Elsewhere in the Vault, the explosion makes Pa's lamp rattle. A beaker falls over. He doesn't care. Nick is locked up in a hidden quarantine room, in the far back of the Infirmary, as far as he knows; the only one who knows Nick's location is the Overseer, and whatever is going on outside, the Overseer won't sacrifice Nick _to_ it or _for_ it.  
They can wait. Nick is more important. Whatever they're doing, they can blow themselves to Hell.  
Time passes indiscriminately of the events in the Vault just beyond Pa's little lab, and only the rasp of a little-fisted knock breaks Pa of his concentration. He hesitantly opens the door, finding Nick standing there, full of bullet holes, uncaring stare directed straight into his eyes.  
"Found you, Pa. Let's play."  
The lab rats in the corner of the room are sprayed with blood, squeaking quietly in the darkness.


End file.
